Traditionally, agents handling orders from customers desiring to change their communication service submitted orders to a home office by mail or fax. These orders included order data and associated documentation. Order data can be very detailed, including the billing address and the service plan information. Due to applicable government regulations, associated documentation may include a signature authorization form when a customer desires to change telephone service providers.
Unfortunately, this manual order entry system causes many problems. For instance, the large amount of order data required allows the agent many opportunities for errors. Also, detection of these errors does not occur until the orders arrive at the home office, or later in the provisioning thread. Further, many of the logical checks that can be performed on the order data involve vast databases that are constantly changing, making it difficult to provide the agent with this data, much less keep it updated. Moreover, mailing or faxing the orders to the home office introduces more errors due to the manual reentry process. Finally, the order forms are difficult to update because there are frequent changes in the type of communication services or rate plans offered by the home office.